Developmentally Appropriate Practices and Early Childhood Special Education

Abstract

In 1991, we published a paper in TECSE arguing that the guidelines set forth by the National Association for the Education of Young Children on Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) were necessary, but not sufficient, for evaluating programs serving young children with special needs. This paper met with some criticism, most recently in a paper by Johnson and McChesney Johnson (1992). That paper provided a theoretical defense of DAP for young children with disabilities and discussed objections to some early childhood special education (ECSE) practices from a developmental perspective. In the present article, we attempt to redirect the debate about the appropriateness of DAP for young children with disabilities from an exchange about the differences between the DAP guidelines and ECSE practices to a discussion of the many areas of overlap between these two rich sources of information about educational practices for young children.